Several months had slipped by since that night.
Not announced. Not marked. They had simply… passed—like water through open fingers, like letters never written but always intended.
At first, I waited.
I told myself he was occupied with matters beyond my knowing. That dragons, ancient as they were, did not measure time as we did. That absence did not imply abandonment.
Yet the days lengthened.
And he did not return.
No shadow crossed the terraces at dusk. No familiar warmth lingered at my back. The places we once shared—the ridges, the ponds, the quiet paths—felt hollow now, as though the world itself had exhaled and forgotten to inhale again.
I had not seen him since.
And so my thoughts, traitorous things, began to wander.
Had I misunderstood him?
Perhaps what felt eternal to me had been fleeting to him. Perhaps his patience had not been devotion but courtesy. Perhaps, in the old tongue of dragons, silence was a dismissal so refined it required no farewell.
The notion settled in my chest like winter.
Abandoned, my heart whispered.
Or worse—forgotten.
I stared at the pale orange resting in my palm, its skin warm from the afternoon sun. I had been turning it absently for several minutes now, lost in the cruel arithmetic of time and memory.
"Nytherra."
I did not answer.
"Nytherra," the voice insisted again, sharper now.
A snap sounded in the air—fingers, close to my face.
I startled, blinking, the world rushing back in.
"What?" I murmured.
Across the stone bench sat Liora, her hair loose beneath a wide-brimmed hat, sunlight catching in its softer strands, her expression bright with amusement and concern in equal measure. Beside her reclined Hestia, composed and unhurried, her posture relaxed yet attentive, as though nothing escaped her notice even when she appeared at ease.
Liora sighed dramatically. "You have been staring at that orange as if it has personally betrayed you."
Hestia tilted her head, eyes thoughtful. "Or as if it has broken your heart."
Heat crept into my cheeks. "I was thinking."
"A hazardous pastime," Liora replied at once. "Especially when one is meant to be enjoying the afternoon."
She gestured around us.
The day was mild, filtered through the old trees of the lower gardens. A linen cloth had been spread upon the grass—not a picnic, precisely, but a modest outing, the sort favored by those who wished to escape their chambers without attracting unnecessary remark. A basket rested nearby, its contents steadily diminishing.
Hestia extended a crescent of peeled orange toward me. "It is unusually sweet. You should partake before Liora claims the remainder for herself."
"I do not claim," Liora protested. "I appreciate. There is a difference."
I accepted the slice. The juice was bright against my tongue—sharp, grounding. Present.
Liora studied me openly now, her mirth softening. "Where were you just now?"
"Nowhere," I said too quickly.
Hestia's gaze lingered on me, calm and steady. She had always been like this—the one who heard what was not spoken. "That is not true."
I looked away, toward the hedges, the pale sky, anywhere but their faces.
"We are here," Liora said more gently. "With you. You disappeared halfway through the afternoon."
I hesitated.
How did one confess to a ghost?
To a presence known only through its absence?
"I was thinking of someone," I admitted at last.
Liora's brows lifted slightly. "Ah."
Hestia did not smile. "Someone who has not written."
No. He had not.
Someone who had promised nothing aloud—and yet had promised everything. Who had stayed… and then had not.
I folded my hands in my lap. "It is nothing."
Liora leaned back, unconvinced. "It seldom is."
They did not press me further. For that, I was grateful.
The conversation drifted—to idle remarks, to shared recollections, to the lingering warmth of the afternoon. Yet beneath it all, my thoughts continued their quiet rebellion.
If he had meant to return, surely he would have.
If he had loved me—truly—could he have vanished so completely?
I told myself not to be foolish.
Still, as the sun dipped lower and shadows lengthened across the garden paths, I found myself listening for a presence that did not come.
And somewhere deep within me, a fear took root:
That the night I had called home
had been only a passing shelter—
And that I had been left behind
among its ruins.
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